IBM Watson Demos AI Patent Assistant
IBM and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) are testing a new AI tool for exploring and analyzing intellectual property data. The IBM IP Advisor uses Watson’s conversational AI to help people look for patents, both submitted and granted, to help inventors avoid potential rejection for repetition and spot where their ideas would fit.
AI Patent Dive
Inventors need to know about patents that may overlap with their own ideas, information known as ‘prior art.’ The sheer volume of patents and applications makes assessing the prior art difficult without enormous resources or expertise in patent law. The IBM IP Advisor leverages Watson’s natural language processing to rapidly gather and analyze patent information based on questions posed by a user about patents, application statuses, and what kind of refinements they might need to make to their inventions to avoid repeating or infringing on someone else’s intellectual property. The service is available for public testing until the end of November on the USPTO’s Open Data Portal.
“Prior art research and analysis is the foundation of a successful product or service launch, but the growth of prior art coupled with the need for appropriate keywords and the right patent classifications can be a barrier to entry for the every-day inventor,” IBM’s general manager for the U.S. public and federal market Steve LaFleche said. “I’m proud of our work with the USPTO in support of their objective to not just deploy smarter technology, but to build a better, more accessible IP system.”
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